In the World of the High Tech Redneck, the Graybeard is the old guy who earned his gray by making all the mistakes, and tries to keep the young 'uns from repeating them. Silicon Graybeard is my term for an old hardware engineer; a circuit designer. The focus of this blog is on doing things, from radio to home machine shops and making all kinds of things, along with comments from a retired radio engineer running from tech or science news to economics; from firearms to the world at large.

Wednesday, November 2, 2016

So Springfield Armory Has an AR-15 Now...

Does that make everyone except Glock and Taurus?

I think anyone who follows gun blogs and news has seen the hype over the "SAINT" that started a month or 6 weeks ago, complete with vague statements ("defend your legacy") and a mandatorily diverse group of hot and sweaty models. I guess I haven't talked about it much since the CNC project started taking over my life, but I'm a bit of a Springfield Armory fanboy. I have three SA handguns, an original XDm, a subcompact XD and a compact XDm. I love them all. With any one of them, I feel like I can pick it up and hit the target, even with months off. Given my background, then, you might figure I was interested in seeing what the hype was about.

Meh. I mean, it looks like a nice enough AR-15, but it's an AR-15 in a world where they're pretty much potato chips. A commodity product. Mrs. Graybeard and I each have our own AR and I have the 80% receivers to build more.

To be honest, I was expecting a handgun, perhaps a successor to the XDs, which seems to be an extremely successful product. Maybe a version of the only handgun currently on my wish list with a stainless slide, like they do for so many others in that product line. Or maybe something that goes head to head with Ruger Precision Rifle, which I still must confess some irrational lust for. Or maybe their M1A line in something other than .308 (not that there's anything wrong with that).

Not really. I'm not overwhelmed, but not disappointed enough to be underwhelmed. So the equivalent of "meh" is just whelmed. I should trademark that, except that nobody uses the expression and I doubt anyone would would want to.

Getting back to the RPR, I just counted up and I have 14 calibers as well, if you include shotgun gauges. I wouldn't have thought we had that many. I already have a couple of .308 rifles. 6.5 Creedmoor interests me, from what I know of the cartridge, and I have nothing in that caliber.

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About Me

Retired radio engineer, follower of Christ, RF designer, mentor. Radio ham, home shop machinist, lapidary, silversmith, roadie cyclist, learning to be a rifleman, and home defender, - a guy with too many interests to keep track of.

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